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culture

This is not a pancake recipe review, and it is not about me failing to make pancakes, either. Au contraire dear people, I recently made pancakes that totally rocked! This is probably the point where you start to worry what this weird post might be about, or start to wonder why you are reading it, so let me get right to it. I have been lucky enough to travel to the United States and Canada several times in my still rather short life, and every European will know how much you miss pancakes once you return. Of course, in the age of globalization you can also get them in Europe, you can buy baking mixtures and so on. So the other day, I decided to make them from scratch because there is not that much that goes into pancakes ingredient wise and SURPRISE, yes we have eggs, milk, flour and so on in Europe, too ;).

Now, as already mentioned, they turned out pretty decent (I might have been a bit too euphoric before, although they were really good, I guess there is still much better out there). They were thick and fluffy and not flat like the pancakes we usually make over here, but they were still light and spongy. I also liked how they tasted, but for some deranged reason it was just not the same. I understand that you cannot make every dish in foreign countries, for instance when you lack certain ingredients, but pancakes? Come on!

Eventually I came to the conclusion that having them in America is special. It is linked to the joy of travelling, discovering, and experiencing new things that just makes a lot of things really amazing. It is the fact that you can only get something whilst you are abroad that makes it taste ten times better because it is unique to you and you know you might not get it anymore in a long time. The fact that it was quite easy, even when making them from scratch implied that, if I wanted, I could eat them all the time, which would make destroy the spark they had for me.

You are probably still wondering where I am going with this, and, to be honest, I am not too sure what my concrete point is, either, but I guess in the end this is about diversity and globalization. Being able to get everything everywhere does not just have benefits. Some things are and should be more or less unique to a certain culture. Of course I will still make pancakes every now and then. I have no clue if and when I will return to America, after all. But only if they remind me of my travels and adventures that lead me to experience where pancakes came from and, in a way, belong to, they will taste really good. That is the secret ingredient. And they will never taste as amazing as they do when you eat them where they came from. (Now if you are a pancake specialist and about to tell me that pancakes originally came from somewhere else, or something along those lines, I do not want to hear it, ok?! :D )

On a smaller scale, it is like living in northern Europe and eating strawberries in winter (which I avoid whenever I can). It is not normal and the amazing thing about strawberries here is that you can only have them for a certain time and thus you will enjoy them so much more. I am not about to tell you not to import anything and so on, I am not a hypocrite, I buy imported goods all the time, myself. But I think with some items it is good to remind ourselves where they come from, what it takes to get them to us, and if it is needed or beneficial if we have constant access to them.

Maybe that made you think, maybe it weirded you out, both is totally ok to me :D
Have a great day!
Kejruna